Alex in Wonderland
by Canadaphile
Summary: Alex is plunged into a Wonderland after following a White Rabbit with a pocketwatch.
1. Chapter One

**Chapter One: Down the Rabbit Hole**

Alex Rider was an unusual boy. He was smart and handsome; 14 years old and attendee public school like all-well, _most_-kids his age did. He loved to play soccer, helped with chores around his home, kept in touch with his school friends, but he was unusual all the same.

If one would look into Alex's eyes, besides finding them to be honey-hazel, one would see that the eyes belonged to no child. This was because he wasn't a child. Not anymore. He lost his friends, his family, his childhood, and even his identity all to the British Military Intelligence- better known as MI6.

MI6 is run by an odd couple. Mr. Alan Blunt and Mrs. Tulip Jones. They have similar drab fashion sense and cultural tastes, but when it came to the boy-their secret weapon- they have seriously opposing views. Mr. Blunt didn't mind sending the boy to certain death while Mrs. Jones-a mother herself-repeatedly protested the use of a child. In the end, they used Alex anyway.

Alex was on his way home from soccer practice, his bag slung over his right shoulder and his hands shoved into his pockets. A shiny black sedan cruised up beside him and slowed down.

The front window rolled down to reveal the driver. It was Crawley, an MI6 operative.

"Hello Alex," he greeted in a friendly fashion, as if he didn't know he would see Alex. "Lucky I found you."

"Not so lucky for me," Alex sighed.

"Blunt wants to talk to you. Something about a new mission I believe."

"Well you can tell that-" The back door opened.

"Hop in, Alex." Mrs. Jones was seated in the back of the car, wearing a gray suit with a black scarf around her throat and sucking a peppermint. Having no choice unless he wanted to run, Alex tossed his bag in the trunk of the car and sat beside the woman. The door closed automatically, Crawley rolled up his window, and they drove away.

"Mint?" Mrs. Jones offered. Alex shook his head and stared out the window. Neither passengers spoke through the whole drive to MI6 headquarters.

It was a relatively pleasant day in London; rather rare for the time of year. Alex had planned to go to a park concert with his friend Tom. Now his plans were thrown a bit off.

MI6 headquarters was disguised as C & J Bank. Crawley stopped around the back of the building, letting his passengers out, before driving into the parking complex. "Good luck, Alex," he said.

"Thanks," Alex answered, confused. What did he need good luck for? Ever since his parents died, he's had a larger amount of bad luck than good.

Alex followed Mrs. Jones into the bank, leaving behind the sticky hot day and entering the Artic-cold air conditioning. Men and women in suits and dresses looked their way as the two walked through the building, but no one said anything. Alex knew, however, that he looked seriously out of place. Not only was he just a kid, he was still wearing his practice shorts and a black tank top; his hair still damp form his shower. He had left his bag in the trunk of Crawley's car-hopefully he wouldn't forget about it. His sneakers squeaked on the marble tiling as he followed Mrs. Jones into the elevator.

The doors closed-no buttons pushed-and woman and boy traveled up.

A tiny bell rang as the elevator doors opened, and Alex stepped out onto thick red carpeting. Mrs. Jones led him to an office door and paused. "Please wait in here Alex." She opened the door and showed Alex the refrigerator, TV, and radio. "There's water and soda in the fridge, along with some snacks. Please help yourself." She left.

Alex waited…

and waited...

and waited…

and waited.

He waited until his stomach told him to eat, so Alex examined the contents of the fridge. Apples, some chocolate bars, yogurt-slightly past its due date-carrots and ranch dip. Coco Cola was actually stocked as well. He grabbed an apple and a Coke and sat behind the large desk to wait…

And wait…

And wait…

Until he fell asleep. The apple fell from his hand and rolled onto the floor.

Sometime later, the door creaked open, and a white ear poked around the edge of the door. A girl with long dark hair and tan skin followed her ears into the room, stopping to twitch her nose suspiciously at the sleeping boy. A fluffy white pom-pom of a tail quivered as she walked with bouncy steps to the refrigerator. Her ears rotated in the boy's direction. A slight snore.

She pulled out a carrot and taking a large bite out of it, chewing happily on the crunchy vegetable. She had finished the carrot and grabbed another, when she noticed the snores had subsided. The boy was waking up.

Alex opened his eyes and rubbed his forehead; he had the misfortune to fall asleep on the spiral binding of a notebook. His eyes looked around, taking in his surroundings. The neat office, fridge humming quietly in the corner, and the pretty girl with two tall white ears poking up from her dark hair. Her eyes were large and round as saucers; her muscles taut.

"Sabina!" Spell broken, the girl twitched her tail and bounded for the door, pausing at the door to wave at him with her right ear. "Sabs, wait!" Alex called. He jumped up from his chair and followed his friend into the hallway.

She was at the end of the hall, looking at an abnormally large watch connected to a chain around her waist. "Oh, no!" she cried. "I'm late!" She dropped the watch into her pocket and punched the button on the wall. The elevated doors opened, and she jumped in.

"Sabina, wait up!" Alex jammed his hand between the doors before they closed completely and stepped into the elevator. Trouble was, there was no floor. Just an empty shaft.

Alex plunged head-first down into the inky blackness.

The doors closed with a friendly 'ding'.

Down the rabbit hole.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two: Pool of Tears & Advice from a Caterpillar**

Down…

Down…

Down…

Alex didn't know how long or how far he fell. The air rushed past him, then everything was still. He hadn't reached the bottom, but Alex could see a dim light below him. He reached out and pulled a string, blinking in the sudden light from the bedside lamp.

He was falling down what he had thought to be an elevator shaft, but it was lined with bookshelves and furniture; suspended, in a way Alex didn't understand, in mid-air.

Then images flashed at him: old photographs and home-video footage. Alex as a toddler. Ian Rider. Mr. and Mrs. Rider before they died. None that Alex had ever seen. He reached out again-this time to one of the photographs of his parents-but was suddenly jarred out of his thoughts.

He had landed, finally, at the end of the shaft. Alex stood and rubbed his sore bottom. The floor was marble tile, and as Alex followed it down the hall, he saw a door shut. It opened to another door, this one smaller than the first. That one slid over to reveal a third door, and this continued until Alex had to crawl on his belly to get to the other side of the doors.

When he stood, he found himself back in the lobby C & J Bank. Only it was empty. The desks were clean of any papers and electronics. It looked like it had never been used-but there was no dust to be seen.

A click alerted Alex to the opposite end of the lobby. He glimpsed a fluffy white tail, then it disappeared through another door. Alex ran to the door, but it shut before him.

"How am I ever going to get through?" he thought aloud. The door s before were large enough so he could at least squeeze through, but this door was only eight inches high.

Alex smacked his palm against the marble in frustration and stood. "What is this, anyway?" he pondered. "Some sort of new training? Are they watching me right now?" His eyes darted around the room suspiciously, but he saw nothing.

Nothing.

The desks were gone, replaced by a single table about the size to put beside a bed. Alex walked to the table and found a case of Coke. It was ice-cold and felt good to Alex's parched throat.

Suddenly, Alex dropped the glass of soda and fell. Or at least, he thought he had fallen, but it was straight down. The floor rushed up to greet him and Alex thought that he was going to his chin against the marble, but he halted about a foot from the ground.

Alex looked down at his body, poking at it to make sure he was all in one piece. "What was that?" He looked up, and gave a shout of surprise. The glass of Coke had been drinking just seconds before was on its side in front of him, spilling the rest of its contents to the floor. But the can was nearly the size of the boy. The table had suddenly grown to ten times its own height.

He had shrunk.

"I'm a midget!" he cried in disbelief. He looked at door, now he was just the right size to fit through. He jiggled the doorknob and ran through the passage, not pausing to look around him.

"Whoa!" The floor fell from beneath him, and Alex was falling-the second time that day-into blackness.

SPLASH!

Alex fell into a bright blue area, then through it into a sea of crystal water. With two powerful kicks he surfaced and treaded water while he got his bearings.

He was in a large pool. By the taste of the water Alex had running down his face, it was salt water-but not like the ocean.

He swam to the edge of the pool and sat on the bottom rung of the ladder there. Suddenly, he felt a tug at his shirt. Looking behind him, he froze at the sight of the abnormally large alligator munching on his shirt.

Without thinking, he smacked the gator's snout-it let go-and climbed the ladder to the safety of a dozen feet of space. He sat, panting and looked around him. He was at the edge of a jungle. There was a strangely colored smoke drifting up from the jungles depths, and he trees reached high into the sky. The grass was nearly as tall as the trees. With a jolt, Alex realized that it was _all_ grass, and the trees were actually flowers.

Feeling somewhat cautious as to what might happen next, Alex pushed aside some of the grass and entered the thick green jungle, making for the odd-colored smoke rings in the horizon.

It seemed like hours since Alex had first started walking, but it had only been a few minutes. The smoke grew thicker as Alex approached, and he thought it might be a fire.

Pushing back the last of the grass, Alex stumbled to the source of the smoke. His jaw dropped at the sight of the humongous mushroom and the drab gray caterpillar sitting on top of it.

The caterpillar ignored Alex as he approached, shuffling through a file papers and then burning the papers he read. That was the source of the smoke. As soon as the paper hit the mushroom-growth beside the caterpillar, they burst into a multi-colored flame.

"Um, excuse me," Alex said. The caterpillar ignored him. "Where am I?" Still ignored.

Alex sighed and sat down with an impatient huff.

"You cry quite a bit," said the caterpillar. Its face was as gray and plain as the rest of him. With gray eyes and gray skin. He looked familiar.

"Excuse me?"

"Those tears your heart has cried for your family-throughout your life-have collected and formed that pool." So the salty-tasting water was actually tears.

"And the alligator? I don't remember ever crying an alligator!"

"That reptile is the symbol of your anger and hurt for your whole family abandoning you," the caterpillar spoke in a slow, monotone voice with no emotion. It was as if he were reciting a well-known, speech that boring even to the speaker.

Alex stood and brushed off his pants. His clothes were amazingly dry.

"You wish to leave?"

"Yes," Alex stated. "But I would like even more to get back to normal height, you know what I mean?"

"I do not. My normal height is this and always has been." It kept shifting through the file; it seemed that the papers just kept refilling themselves with no end.

"Well, do you know how I can leave, at least?"

"Find the door." Alex asked which door he was looking for, but the caterpillar was silent and ignored him again. The boy shrugged and began to walk away.


	3. Chapter Three

**Author's note:**_ This chapter is a bit boring, even to me. But I need it to carry the story, so please read and review. Tell me what you liked and what you didn't. Next chapter will be up soon._

**Chapter Three:** "Pig and Pepper" AKA The Duchess & the Chesshire Cat

Alex left the annoyingly dull Caterpillar and entered the jungle grass once more. "Find the door, he says," Alex said. "Well, just exactly _how_ am I to do that?" The grass ended, revealing a clearing. In the clearing, a hollow stump of an old flower held a glass of dark liquid. Tasting it, Alex found it to be another Coke.

"If the last one got me smaller," he mused. "Perhaps this will get me back to my normal size." He sipped the Coke.

Nothing happened.

He downed the drink in one gulp.

Nothing.

Sighing, Alex tossed the glass away and shoved his hands in his pockets, ready to start walking again. Suddenly, he felt something shoved into his lower back.

"Turn around slowly," a gruff voice commanded. Alex turned, and lowered his hands. The guard was aiming a thick stick at him, holding it like a rifle.

"You should be careful with that stick," Alex warned. "You could get splinters."

The guard whacked Alex over the head with the stick. "Quiet!" Rubbing his head, Alex looked closely at the guard.

He was wearing a strange uniform: black pants, white shirt, black hat with a thick white plume erupting from the side brim. His shirt checked with black spades. The buckles on his shoes were polished silver spades, as well.

"Who are you?" The guard stopped talking abruptly. Something fell to the ground behind him, and he fell with it. Poking the guard suspiciously with his foot, Alex found him to be quite unconscious.

The reason for his condition was the storm of pots and pans being thrown out of windows and doors of a large house Alex hadn't seen before. He walked to the front door, just barely managed impalement by a wooden spoon, and peeked into the house.

A woman holding a large baby was rocking gently in her chair; the baby was remarkably calm considering every five seconds the woman had to dodge a hail of cutlery.

The source of the projectiles was another woman seated before a large cauldron heating over a fire.

During a lull of the hurricane of pots, Alex cautiously entered the house and approached the woman rocking the baby. She looked up as he approached and smiled.

She wasn't exactly pretty, but she had a friendly round face and brilliant red hair. "Hello, I am the Duchess. Over there making soup is our Cook-"The Duchess had to duck quickly to avoid being beheaded by the pan that the Cook threw her way. "Why am I the Cook!" the Cook wailed. "I'm _always_ doing the dirty jobs!" She threw one last pot-the cauldron actually- and ran from the house.

The cauldron landed five feet from Alex and spilled out its contents harmlessly onto the floor. 'Well, they looked harmless,' Alex thought, 'but the hole being burned into the floor tells me that was no ordinary soup.'

"-and the one sleeping upon the mantle is our cat." The Duchess finished, calming her baby.

Alex hadn't even noticed the abnormally large cat grinning at him from the shadowy mantle above the cook. As it saw Alex's gaze fall upon it, its grin widened to an impossible width. "I didn't know cats could grin like that," Alex muttered.

"Mm-hm," the Duchess laughed. "She's a Cheshire Cat. They all grin like that, unless they are upset, then they have a terrible temper!" The woman shook her head sadly and sighed.

"Do you know where I can find my way out?" Alex inquired.

A clock bonged the time somewhere in the house, and the Duchess looked out the window. "I have to appear in Court," she said.

"What do you to go to Court for?"

"I am being charged with delivering the wrong soup to his highness, the Black Queen," the Duchess explained.

"His Highness, the Black _Queen_?"

"It's a position thing, dear; the Queen has more power than the kings ever did." She handed the child down to Alex. "Would you please watch after him? He'll be no trouble."

Before Alex could protest, he was holding the baby in his arms and the Duchess was gone.

"Well, fella," Alex sighed, looking down at the baby, "looks like it's just you and me, now." Alex turned to leave, and his gaze fell upon a bottle that must have been used for the baby. Next to it was another bottle, this one empty.

Alex grabbed the bottle and gave it to the sleepy infant. He took it and drank with the eagerness only a child or dying man could know. They exited the house by means of the back door the Duchess had used to disappear so quickly.

Once outside, Alex met the Cheshire Cat again. Its grin, at least. The rest of its body soon appeared, but Alex had his hand over his heart to prevent a heart attack. It was actually partially human. A girl, with large purple ears poking out from beneath long fair hair and a pink and purple striped tail. She sat on a high tree branch, swinging her purple -clad legs and twitching her tail back and forth.

"Cheshire Cat," Alex greeted. "Wait, how did you get out here so fast?"

Ignoring Alex's very good question, the Cat-girl grinned at him. "You know," the Cat said, "you know absolutely nothing about handling children."

"What would you know?" Alex retorted.

"How could you have thought that _doll_ was the Duchess's child? A vague resemblance, but-" Alex looked at the wrapped bundle in his arms. It really was a doll.

"Where is he? Where'd he-" He caught sight of the baby's bottom as it disappeared into the forest. "Catch him?"

"Catch whom?" the Cat asked.

"The baby!"

"What baby?" She examined her claws, still grinning.

"Never mind!" Alex ran after the child, leaving the sunny clearing behind and plunging into the dark forest.


End file.
